Let's see: the boats go from China to the West Coast, then back out here to Hawaii...just like the pollution.

So if we wanted less Chinese coal dust in the islands, we might try ratcheting back on our big box purchases.

Seems sufficiently circular to me, yet some folks don't get the connection.

Now, the New Economic Foundation is driving home the point that China is rapidly becoming the "environmental laundry for the western world.

NEF's Andrew Simms says, "it is demand from countries like the UK which leads to smoke from Chinese factories and power plants entering the atmosphere."

According to the NEF report called Chinadependence, it makes no sense to attack China because of its rising pollution levels, especially since "China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States", says Simms.

Having said this, NEF adds that outsourcing to China has also created more harmful gas emissions for each product, because China's energy is more dependent on fossils than in Europe, Japan or the USA.

Still, the UK might look more closely at its own wasteful shopping and international trade,

For example, wudja believe that Britain imported 14,000 tons of chocolate-covered waffles from all its trading partners and exported 15,000 tons? The UK also exported 20 tons of mineral water to Australia, only to bring back 21 tons.